Thomas Hinman Moorer

Thomas Hinman Moorer (9 February 1912-5 February 2004) was a US Navy Admiral who served as Chief of Naval Operations from 1967 to 1970 (succeeding David L. McDonald and preceding Elmo Zumwalt) and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1970 to 1974 (succeeding Earle Wheeler and preceding George S. Brown).

Biography
Thomas Hinman Moorer was born in Mount Willing, Alabama in 1912, and he was raised in Eufaula. He graduated from the Naval Academy in 1933 and was commissioned a US Navy ensign, and he commanded a patrol squadron in the Pacific theatre of World War II, fighting in the Attack on Pearl Harbor, the Dutch East Indies campaign, and in the southwest Pacific. He was promoted to Vice Admiral in 1962 and Admiral in 1964, and he served as commander of the Pacific Fleet from 1964 to 1965 and of the Atlantic Fleet from 1965 to 1967. From 1967 to 1970, he served as Chief of Naval Operations, and he went on to serve as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1970 to 1974 as the Vietnam War de-escalated. He personally masterminded the 1972 mining of Haiphong, and argued that, had the action been performed in 1964, it may have altered the course of the war. In 1967, after the USS Liberty incident, he claimed that Israel had launched the attack on purpose, and that the Zionists had a strong hold on Johnson and persuaded him to cover up the incident. He retired in 1974 and died in Bethesda, Maryland in 1974.